National Museums Scotland

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chambers Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1JF
Tel: +44 (0) 131 247 4422
Typetalk: 18001 0131 247 4422
Fax: +44 (0) 131 220 4819
Dept. Fax: +44 (0) 131 247 4330
Email: info@nms.ac.uk
Web: http://www.nms.ac.uk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

National Museums Scotland holds nearly 6,000 items from Ancient Egypt and Sudan, representing all periods from the predynastic to early Christian and Islamic. In addition, there is a significant collection of Egyptian material dating to the last millennium. The wide range of artefacts includes amulets, basketry, clothing, coffins and mummies, food, furniture, jewellery, musical instruments, pottery, shabtys, slate palettes, stelae, statues, tomb models, tools, wall paintings, and weapons. There are also Ancient Egyptian texts (literary, funerary, letters) from Old Egyptian to Demotic and Coptic. Highlights of the collection include: A complete royal burial group (17th Dynasty) from Thebes, consisting of the coffins and remains of a woman and child, as well as an exceptional assemblage of jewellery, pottery (Egyptian and Nubian), furniture and food. Sphinxes of Merenre (6th Dynasty) and Ahmose I (18th Dynasty). A mummy-portrait (c. 110 BC-30 AD) from Hawara, showing a young woman with elaborately dressed hair and fine jewellery. A unique, and very late, double coffin (c. 175-200 AD) from Thebes, which contained the mummies of two half-brothers.

 

 

The NMS collections derive from three principal sources: (1) The Edinburgh University Natural History Collection, which was collected before 1854. (2) The National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, which, in Egyptology terms, principally consists of the major part of the collection of Alexander Henry Rhind (1833-1863). (3) The collections of the former Royal Scottish Museum, which derive from a number of excavations, including those of the EEF/EES and the BSAE associated with celebrated names such as Brunton, Emery, Garstang, Griffith, Naville and Petrie.

 

Staff

 

The NMS Ancient Egypt and Sudan collections are part of the Department of World Cultures, which has a Keeper and eleven staff; specifically the collections are in the care of the Ancient Mediterranean Section, which comprises a Principal Curator, an Assistant Curator and a specialist Egyptologist. NMS also employs a large staff of conservators and analytical researchers and has a dedicated Photography Department.

 

 

NMS has a Department for Learning & Programmes, which hosts regular events for schoolchildren, both at the Chambers Street site and at schools via videoconferencing. The Chambers Street site also has a small handling collection of Ancient Egyptian artefacts. There is a supporting website and educational resource for schoolchildren at: http://www.nms.ac.uk/education/egyptian/index.php. A dedicated Access and Outreach team is developing projects across Scotland to meet the needs and interests of different groups and communities.

 

 

 

The Mummy Project is a multi-disciplinary investigation of all the NMS mummies and their associated artefacts. The thirteen mummies – men, women and children – date from the 17th Dynasty to the Roman period. Some were unwrapped before they entered NMS but most are still wrapped and will remain so. The multi-disciplinary teams are using many techniques and several specialists may study each artefact, each with a different method. Some techniques, like X-radiography and CT-scanning, are completely non-destructive and help to determine such issues as age at death, health, gender and diet. Other specialised analytical techniques involve taking tiny samples. Conservation is vitally needed too, especially for the elaborately decorated coffins in which the mummies were buried and for the delicate textiles with which they were wrapped.

 

 

 

 

A. H. Rhind, Thebes, Its Tombs and Their Tenants, Ancient and Present, London, 1862; M. A. Murray, Catalogue of Egyptian Antiquities in the National Museum of Antiquities, Edinburgh 1900; Edinburgh Museum of Science Art, Scotch Education Department, Guide to the Collection of Egyptian Antiquities, 1903; The Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, Scottish Education Department, Guide to the Collection of Egyptian Antiquities, 1920; C. Aldred, Scenes from Ancient Egypt in the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, 1979; A. Sheridan, Heaven and Hell, and Other Worlds of the Dead, Edinburgh, 2000.